In the Dead of Cold (19 page)

“I’m glad you’ve come to spend the evening with me and have a late supper. I know it was short notice, but I never got a chance to thank you. If you hadn’t come when you did, I might have been at the bookstore that night.” Ella gave her a beautiful, full smile that matched the slight Spanish accent in her deep voice. “Thank you.”

Jane offered her a small smile. “Well, you’re welcome, I guess. Thank
you
for inviting Milo and me for a late supper. It smells great. Milo and I ate outside earlier. I didn’t eat much, though. We spent most of the meal talking.”

“Graham and I do that a lot too.” Ella stirred the pot of sauce on the stove. “I’m just sorry my husband called an emergency meeting that might make supper late. Especially since sometimes my husband’s meetings can go on for hours.”

“Do they often have meetings in the evening?” Jane knew Milo was across the foyer in Graham’s office, but he was out of her sight. Not having him close pulled at her gut, almost as if he were unreachable. She was attentive to Ella’s conversation and aware of the subtle aroma of supper, yet she made certain she stood in Ella’s kitchen where she could watch the door for Milo. She strained her ears, listening for the sound of his approaching step or the muffled sound of his voice. It had been eight hours since she’d last had him in her mouth. She licked her lips and still tasted him. Her nipples flared at the memory. Jane swallowed and sucked in a breath in an effort to keep calm. She bit her lip. If she could hear his voice, reassure herself he was close, perhaps her racing heart would calm. Perhaps this insatiable need for sex would abate.

“They have meetings whenever they need them.” Ella stirred the large pot of boiling pasta on the stove.

“What if they aren’t done by the time supper is?”
She’d personally go across the foyer and get him.

Ella smiled and shrugged. “Then I guess we eat by ourselves.” She looked at her watch. “We’ll give them another fifteen or twenty minutes, but no later than eight thirty. Then I’m eating. By the way, I saw you today, skating in the rink with Milo. The two of you looked very happy together.”

For a long moment, Jane said nothing. When she finally met Ella’s gaze, she was uncertain as to what to say. “I guess we’re happy. I mean, I don’t know if that’s how I’d describe us.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t know about Milo, but I’m afraid to be happy. Of course, I can’t even fathom the idea of being without Milo, now that he’s in my life. Did you know that Milo and I shared dreams for the past two years?”

“My husband mentioned it.”

“Well, Milo answered a lot of questions, and being out in the fresh air cleared my mind a little. So even though the confusion is still there, it’s better.”

“Perhaps I should have put a bit of bourbon in your hot chocolate,” Ella suggested.

Jane let out a chuckle. She didn’t need a drink. She needed Milo. “Yes, maybe.”

Ella nodded. “I remember that confusion. I don’t think you could pay me to go through it again.”

Jane stared at Ella for a long moment. “You felt confusion like this?”

“Oh, yes, the first several days I was with Graham.”

Jane digested this as she took a swallow of her cooling hot chocolate. For the first time, she didn’t feel so alone. She let out a long, slow breath. “How did you get past it?”

“It takes time. Let Milo hold you and be close. Being together eases it.”

Jane already knew that. Her insides quaked with the need to be close to him. Hell, the Mastersons’ penthouse was huge and inviting, but she thought the damned walls were going to close in on her if Milo didn’t come soon. “I thought it was the idea of…”

“Vampires?” Ella finished. Then she smiled. “It’s all right. You can say it. I won’t bite you.”

At Jane’s shocked expression, Ella laughed.

“I really won’t. Bite you, that is.”

“Even though I saw a vision of Milo having fangs when I bumped against him, I had a hard time believing vampires actually existed,” Jane confessed. She also couldn’t believe she was having such a casual conversation about them.

Ella smiled. “It’s a good thing for us that people don’t believe we exist. There are more of us than you know, all over the world.”

“It’s hard to know what to believe, since the myths state you can’t be out in the sun, yet you are. I also grew up with the idea that vampires were evil and drank blood, not eat pasta,” Jane said.

Ella chuckled. “We need blood to sustain us or heal us if we get injured, but not as often as the world has been led to believe. And with time, we can be out in the sunlight and not get burned. But back in the old days, vampires were forced to move about at night to survive, so that’s probably where that myth comes from.”

Jane took another drink of her cocoa. “So what about the stake through the heart myth? Will that kill you?”

Ella shrugged. “Most likely, unless we could stay alive long enough to pull it out and heal ourselves. I’m not sure. But then it would kill you too, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes. Even if I did manage to pull it out.” Jane stared down at her cup for a long moment. When she looked up, she rolled her eyes. “This is very hard to accept. I can’t believe I’m standing here, talking about vampires. Then again, it’s not my first conversation about them today.”

“How do you feel about Milo?” Ella spooned out a noodle so she could test the tenderness.

Jane recognized the intentional change of subject, but Milo was a subject she found easy to discuss. “Do you want the truth?”

“Nothing but.”

Ella looked up, and Jane met her gaze. “I feel like I’m riding a seesaw. Now that I’ve found him for real, I can’t live without him. I can’t be more than a room away from him. Then I think about him being a—you know.”

“Vampire,” Ella put in.

“Yes, and it terrifies me—the idea does, anyway, not Milo. I mean, my first real experience with a vampire was behind the bookstore, and he wanted to kill me. So what should I think?”

“That we’re not all like Bart,” Ella said without hesitation.

“I know. I’m reminded of that every time I’m close to Milo.”

Ella stirred the simmering pasta sauce again. “I’m thankful for your little psychic gift. I hate to think what might have happened without it.”

“In my vision, he didn’t kill you.” For a moment, Jane was uncertain as to how much to say. She was positive Milo had shared her vision with Graham, but would Graham share everything with Ella—or hold back to protect her?

Ella picked up the cup of tea she’d set on the stove and took a sip. “To tell you the truth, I doubt he would ever hurt me.”

“You’re sure of that?” Cold swept through Jane with her memory of the evil she’d felt when she’d touched his hand. Then she thought of Bart licking her face, tasting her, and thinking she was about to die. She couldn’t see Bart being kind or merciful to anyone.

“Bart wasn’t always what he is now,” Ella replied.

“What do you mean?”

“He used to be good, like Milo, like Graham.”

Jane didn’t think that idea would ever completely sink in, no matter how long she considered it. “Really?”

“I was going to marry him.”

Impossible.
Jane was stunned, unable to speak. She couldn’t believe that the beautiful, smart, elegant woman before her would ever be close to a man as evil as Bart, much less marry him. “What happened?”

Ella turned back to the stove as she spoke. “A series of things, like dominoes all falling down one after the other.” She turned and looked over her shoulder at Jane. “I often wonder where I might be had one domino been out of place.” Then she took a deep breath and turned back to the stove. “It was nineteen hundred—a new century, a new age, when I landed with my family at Ellis Island. I still remember the excitement of being in America, how my heart pounded. I met Bart at my first job, a clothing factory, where I sat for hours in front of a sewing machine, sewing sleeves for men’s shirts. It was hot and horrible, six days of long hours for six dollars. And the owner, even though he was nice, always talked like the pay was something we should be grateful for.”

Ella paused, picked up a clean spoon, and tasted the sauce. “Mmm, perfect. We’ll give them a few more minutes; then we’re eating without them. I’m starving. Anyway, Bart was a foreman, and way too nice to be a foreman. He argued with two other foremen all the time because they expected so many sleeves per day, so many shirts per day. When someone didn’t meet her quota, Bart would maneuver things around so the numbers would fit and no one would get in trouble from the other foremen. There were many days when I sewed an extra five to cover for someone else. I think I fell in love with Bart the first time he looked into my eyes and asked if I’d give up a few sleeves for an old woman who didn’t see very well. Our courtship and engagement were like a whirlwind.”

She turned the heat under the pot of pasta off. “But Bart worried.”

Jane took a drink of her lukewarm chocolate.

“He worried over money and finding a better place to live, and what if I got pregnant right away. He thought the city was dirty, but he didn’t have the money to take me away. And he had bigger ideas for the shirt factory, but they fell on deaf ears. He didn’t understand that I came from a poor, hardworking family. My father had sold his small bakery, for crying out loud, in order to buy the tickets to get us across the Atlantic. Poor and work were my life. I didn’t know Bart had met up with a man named Donatello, who told Bart he could make some quick cash. I didn’t know Donatello wanted Bart’s soul in return, or that he was one of the evilest vampires ever. He promised Bart money and wealth and immortality. Bart fell for his empty promises. But when he turned Bart, it was as if he also gave Bart his evilness.”

Ella met Jane’s gaze, and Jane thought she saw unshed tears.

“Suddenly, he wasn’t my loving Bart, a man with dreams, a man who thought family and honor and pride and love came first. He was this out-of-control man who made demands and hurt people when he didn’t get what he wanted.”

She paused, and Jane had the impression there was much more to her words than what was spoken.

“Bart got into an argument with another foreman at the factory. The next day, there was a terrible fire. Many people died. I went to…” She paused again. “Bart’s brother. I told him Bart had changed, and I thought he had something to do with the fire. I told him this man, Donatello, had some kind of hold on Bart. When Bart found me talking to his brother, he went crazy with rage. Rose, his brother’s wife, was killed.”

She paused and took a deep breath. Jane felt how difficult it was for Ella to talk about.

“Bart and his brother fought. It was terrible.”

“What did you do?” Jane asked, her throat tight and scratchy. She felt Ella’s pain in her words.

“I ran. I ran out of there, and right into Graham, who was hunting Donatello or anyone associated with him. Donatello had bitten many people, hoping to create an army of vampires, and Graham was hell-bent on stopping him. But Donatello was already gone. So was Bart. Graham managed to save Bart’s brother but couldn’t save his wife. And he couldn’t find Bart.”

“This doesn’t excuse anything Bart ever did,” Jane put in.

“But I wanted you to see that he wasn’t always evil.”

“Children are pretty innocent, but some of them can grow up to be mean adults.” Jane sucked in a heavy breath. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound so harsh. But when he touched me, I felt his evilness. It still makes me cold. But I appreciate your telling me all this. It helps me to understand him.”

“I know. I wish I could get rid of some of the guilt. Even now, I think I should have gone somewhere else besides Bart’s brother. I could have gone anywhere else. I shouldn’t have taken his rage to them.”

“It’s not your fault; it’s Bart’s.” Jane paused as a thought struck her. “What happened to Donatello?”

“He died a few weeks later.”

Jane couldn’t help noticing that Ella didn’t say how he’d died. “How did you—”

“Become a vampire?” Ella finished.

Ella flashed her a blinding smile, and Jane felt Ella’s evident love in that smile.

“Graham. A few years after Bart was gone, there was an epidemic. Typhus. I was very ill. Graham changed me to keep me from dying. I’ve been with him every moment since.”

The intercom buzzed, and Ella answered it.

A woman’s voice crackled over the intercom. “
We’ve got your bread ready for you, Mrs. M
.”

Ella smiled. “Can you bring it right up, please? Thank you.” She turned back to Jane. “I had everything else to make Italian tonight but the bread, so I ordered it from the kitchen downstairs. I suppose it’s one of the perks of being the boss’s wife.” She pushed another intercom button. “There will be room service bringing bread up in a moment.”

“I’ll be on the lookout, Mrs. M.,” the guard in the elevator foyer replied.

“I’ll save you some pasta, Garth.”

“Thanks, Mrs. M.”

Ella disconnected the call button. “This pasta is perfect. Can you hand me that colander?” She pointed to one sitting on the counter.

Jane handed the utensil to Ella, and her fingers touched Ella’s. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” Jane asked without thinking.

“You do know things, don’t you? Graham didn’t even know until I told him this morning. And I always thought he sensed everything.” Ella smiled. “A few months, yes.” She turned to the sink to drain the pasta. “Graham is worried that Bart wants our baby.”

“And you.”

“Yes. But we haven’t had any contact with Bart for decades. Even if he does know about the baby, why now? Why not wait until the baby’s born?”

“Maybe he’s been watching you and waiting for what he feels is the right moment to strike. Maybe it’s you he wants, and the baby would be a bonus.”

Ella pondered this idea for a moment, then shrugged. “I still think it’s strange that he made his appearance when my husband has hunted him for years and hasn’t been able to find him. Besides, he’s taking a grave chance coming here.”

The doorbell rang, announcing the arrival of the bread.

“Ah, just in time,” Ella said, moving to the door.

So many things fell into place. Milo’s words.
“Bart had a fiancé who feared him. My wife was dead.”
Ella’s words.
“Bart’s brother’s wife, Rose, was killed.”
Her eyes opened wide. “Milo is Bart’s brother.” Jane said out loud.